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College Football Players Recruiting Sports Agents

It’s Duck Hunting Season

Not knowing whether the brochure you hand out to a player is too specific and thus considered to be personally tailored towards an athlete is one thing.  But all of us agents know when we are clearly breaking the NCAA rule, which strictly prohibits the disbursement of any type of monetary benefit to a student-athlete.  Yet, somehow, violations continue.  As a profession, let’s cut this crap already.

The most recent case is out of the University of Oregon, where offensive tackle Fenuki Tupou was suspended for the first game of this season for receiving money and a free meal from Tim Norling of LMM Sports Management.  Lock, Metz and Malinovic cannot be too happy to see their company’s name making headlines for this nonsense.

Norling denies that he paid for the meal or gave Tupou any additional money.  My only question then is why would Tupou make such a big deal over $30 ($10 for the meal, $20 in cash handed over afterwards)?  I would not think that he has any personal vendetta against Norling, and even if he did, would he not care about missing the first game of his important senior season based on a lie?  Tupuo self-reported the violation, which probably would have never been dug up by Oregon, the NCAA, or the NFLPA.

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.

One reply on “It’s Duck Hunting Season”

so topou had to give $100 back and sit out a game, if it’s not true he must REALLY have it in for this agent…

jeez, this isn’t the first “issue” with lock, metz, and malinovic….

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